


Pixie Cuts and Memories

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Empty Hearse, F/F, Femslash Friday, The Empty Hearse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:00:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6913795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft’s holding out the file she’d been demanding since she walked in. She opens it. The shot of Jen had been taken by an agent at a distance; it revealed little about her wellbeing, though she was visibly tired and alone. But one thing was obvious. Jen’s hair had grown wavy and a bit tangled and quite long.</p><p>“Where is she now? I think I’ll surprise her,” she tells Mycroft, expecting and receiving a look of disapproval.</p><p>“It’s just possible that you may not be welcome.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pixie Cuts and Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to think what the fem!lock equivalent to John’s heterosexual mournstache would be, and this is the result.

Sherlock sits frowning while the stylist Mycroft apparently has on call (naturally) cuts off most of her hair. Her matted, half-dreaded, once fantastic hair. She winces as the stylist gently tilts her head to check the back of the cut. It’ll be almost as short as Jen’s, she thinks, and smiles, thinking of that familiar pixie, the soft hairs at the nape of Jen’s small, strong neck. Her own neck and shoulders were resisting the stylist’s gentle manipulations, feeling the effects of the brutal assault she’d endured in Serbia. That had been a nightmare. But being deployed as an agent for two years in pursuit of Moriarty’s men was an absolutely reasonable exchange for keeping Jen and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson safe. Lying to Jen about it had been a much harder choice, but if it was necessary, and Mycroft had assured her the only thing making her doubt that was her emotional involvement…well. She’d do what it took and handle the consequences. She wishes she could have kept her hair, though.

She stands up from the chair, takes a long look in the mirror the stylist hands her. “Thank you,” she says shortly. Mycroft’s holding out the file she’d been demanding since she walked in. She opens it. The shot of Jen had been taken by an agent at a distance; it revealed little about her wellbeing, though she was visibly tired and alone. But one thing was obvious. Jen’s hair had grown wavy and a bit tangled and quite long.

Jenna Watson hates long hair. Hates how long it takes to dry it and to brush it out, how it gets blown into her mouth on windy days. Hates the social expectation that she’d learn to style it. She finds it utterly impractical. Sherlock knows all this not because she’s ever known Jen with anything but the pixie cut (army length when they met, a bit longer in time), but because of the times Jen talks about her past. Long evenings spent quietly in the flat, Sherlock doing experiments at the kitchen table while Jen read novels by the fire, had made Jen nostalgic sometimes. So had the aftermath of scary movie nights–always Jen’s idea, which made her behavior during them inexplicable; she inevitably began shifting closer to Sherlock on the couch as the plot piled up its predictable corpses and bogeys, finally hiding her face in Sherlock’s back to muffle her audible reactions to corny scare shots. “You were a soldier,” Sherlock groaned the first time it happened, “ _really,_ Jen,” and Jen had chuckled against her back, not moving.

“I haven’t exactly had experience in combat with the undead.”

And Jen would stay there after the movie ended, squished halfway behind Sherlock on the couch, running her fingers slowly through Sherlock’s hair, and talking. Sometimes she’d twist Sherlock’s hair up on top of her head, then let it tumble down again, or braid and unbraid it absentmindedly, her fascinating voice (contralto, authoritative, rough but soft) talking quietly about something experienced in the years before they met, and Sherlock would stay very still. Jen was private, a lot of the time, self-contained in a way Sherlock had never managed to be. Something about being hidden behind Sherlock, not exposed to observation, fingers busy in Sherlock’s hair, helped her open herself a bit so Sherlock could look inside.

Jen had grown up at a school with a uniform (pleated skirts and Peter Pan collars, of all the not-Jen things) and her mother had insisted she leave her hair long. At the approach of puberty she’d begun to assert further control over Jen’s appearance, had bought makeup Jen never wanted to wear, cried until Jen agreed to shave her legs to the knee, taken her to get her eyebrows waxed when she turned fourteen and announced she’d set up regular appointments. It had been too much.

Jen had chopped off her hair with a pair of scissors in the school bathroom and come home defiant. Her mother had slapped her, then burst into tears. Accusations had been made about her sexuality and her lack of dignity. “It doesn’t even look good on you--your ears are too big,” her mother had wailed–-at which point in the narrative Sherlock had snorted and interrupted, “That’s absurd. Personal idiosyncrasies make a pleasing appearance more memorable.” She couldn’t see Jen’s face, but she felt her go still. After a moment, she added, “Clearly your mother was simply trying to undermine your confidence in your decision in order to reassert control. Your deviation from societal gender mores embarrassed her, that’s all. Her aesthetic opinion is irrelevant under those influences.”

Jen had laughed a little, finally. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Sherlock smiles at the memory, then snaps the folder closed and shakes her head. Why had she grown out her hair?

“Where is she now? I think I’ll surprise her,” she tells Mycroft, expecting and receiving a look of disapproval.

“It’s just possible that you may not be welcome.”

“No, it isn’t.”


End file.
